Month: January 2026

Rather Than Taking Time, Time Takes You…

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And so you have a life that you are living only now,
now and now and now,
gone before you can speak of it,
and you must be thankful for living day by day,
moment by moment …
a life in the breath and pulse
and living light of the present…
~Wendell Berry from Hannah Coulter

Astonishing material and revelation appear in our lives all the time.
Let it be.
Unto us, so much is given.
We just have to be open for business.
~Anne Lamott from Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers

…writing was one way to let something of lasting value emerge
from the pains and fears of my little, quickly passing life.
Each time life required me to take a new step
into unknown spiritual territory,
I felt a deep, inner urge to tell my story to others–
Perhaps as a need for companionship but maybe, too,
out of an awareness that my deepest vocation
is to be a witness to the glimpses of God
I have been allowed to catch.
~Henri Nouwen from Reaching Out

…there is something illicit, it seems, about wasted time,
the empty hours of contemplation when a thought unfurls,
figures of speech budding and blossoming,
articulation drifting like spent petals
onto the dark table we all once gathered around to talk and talk,
letting time get the better of us.
_Just taking our time_, as we say.
That is, letting time take us.
~Patricia Hampl from Blue Arabesque: A Search for the Sublime 

I would recognize myself in my patients, one after another after another. They sat at the edge of their seat, struggling to hold back a flood from brimming eyes, fingers gripping the arms of the chair, legs jiggling. Each moment, each breath, each rapid heart beat overwhelmed by panic-filled questions: will there be another breath?  must there be another breath? Must this life go on like this in fear of what the next moment will bring?

The only thing more frightening than the unknown is the fear that the next moment could be worse than the last. Sadly, this is a tragic waste of precious time, a lack of recognition of a moment just passed that will never be retrieved and relived.  

There is only fear of the next and the next so that the now and now and now is lost forever.

Worry and angst is more contagious than the flu.
I washed my hands of it throughout the clinic day.
I wished a simple vaccination could protect us all from unnamed fears.

I wanted to say to them as well as myself:
Stop to rest within this moment in time.
Stop and stop and stop.
Stop fearing the gift of each breath.

Simply be.

I wanted to say:
this moment in time is yours alone.
Don’t let time take it from you;
instead, take time for
weeping and sharing
and breath and pulse and light.
Shout for joy in it.
Celebrate it.
Be thankful for tears that flow
and stop holding them back.

Just be, as uncomfortable as it is –
and be blessed–
in the now and now and now.

Be swept along on the current of time;
now winter bare-branched, to be soon
unfurling, budding,
eventually blossoming.

Time takes us there. So let’s take time.

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The Dwindles

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Morning without you is a dwindled dawn.
~Emily Dickinson in a letter to a friend April 1885

Over the years, the most common search term bringing new readers to my Barnstorming blog is “dwindled dawn.”

I had written about Emily Dickinson’s “dwindles” on a number of occasions – missing a house full of our three children, who have their own homes with families. Yet I had not felt afflicted with a serious case of dwindles myself until the ongoing isolation during COVID-time.

I was clearly not the only one. “Dwindles” spread across the globe during the pandemic more quickly than the virus.

There really isn’t a pill that works well for dwindling. One of the most effective treatments is breaking bread with friends and family all in the same room, at the same table, playing games, lingering over conversation or singing together in harmony.

Just being together becomes the ultimate cure for dwindles.

Maybe experiencing friend and family deficiency during the pandemic helped us all understand how crucial we are to one another. It’s high time to replenish the reservoir so we don’t dwindle away to nothing.

If you are visiting these words for the first time because you too searched for “dwindled dawn” — welcome to Barnstorming. We can stave off the dwindles by joining together each day for encouragement and a bit of beauty.

Because mornings without you all diminishes me.
I just want you to know.

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A Tuesday in January

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Ms. Marcus says that an occasional poem is a poem
written about something
important
or special
that’s gonna happen
or already did.
Think of a specific occasion, she says—and write about it.

Like what?! Lamont asks.
He’s all slouched down in his seat.
I don’t feel like writing about no occasion.

How about your birthday? Ms. Marcus says.
What about it? Just a birthday. Comes in June and it ain’t
June, Lamont says. As a matter of fact,
he says, it’s January and it’s snowing.

Then his voice gets real low and he says
And when it’s January and all cold like this
feels like June’s a long, long ways away.

The whole class looks at Ms. Marcus.
Some of the kids are nodding.

Outside the sky looks like it’s made out of metal
and the cold, cold air is rattling the windowpanes
and coming underneath them too.

Then write about January, Ms. Marcus says, that’s
an occasion.
But she looks a little bit sad when she says it
Like she’s sorry she ever brought the whole
occasional poem thing up.

I was gonna write about Mama’s funeral
but Lamont and Ms. Marcus going back and forth
zapped all the ideas from my head.

I guess them arguing
on a Tuesday in January’s an occasion
So I guess this is an occasional poem.
~Jacqueline Woodson from “Occasional Poem”

I like these cold, gray winter days.  Days like these let you savor a bad mood.
–  Bill Watterson in Calvin and Hobbes

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
~Robert Frost “Dust of Snow”

Now one year later after the occasion of an inauguration,
most of us wish things could be different than they are~
nothing feels right, rights feel like nothing,
we’re more than out of sorts, grumpy, in a bad mood –
we’re all sadly angry and angrily sad.

And we thought the pandemic was bad.

But moral decay at the highest level
is doing more damage than any virus did.
We’ve allowed politics to sow and reproduce
discord, distrust, discouragement
into our very beings.

There is no vaccine
for this aching of the heart.

An infection of the spirit
will far outlast any pandemic virus
by spreading to future generations,
eroding trust as we allow justice to decay,
as human bonds break,
withering our faith and our hope
that our country can survive anything.

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We Share the Guilt

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Do you know why this world is as bad as it is?
It is because people think only about their own business, 
and won’t trouble themselves to stand up for the oppressed, 
nor bring the wrong-doers to light. 
My doctrine is this: that if we see cruelty or wrong
that we have the power to stop, 
and do nothing,
we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.
~Anna Sewell from Black Beauty

foggydrops18

As nightfall does not come at once,
neither does oppression.
In both instances, there is a twilight
when everything remains seemingly unchanged.
And it is in such twilight
that we all must be most aware of change in the air
– however slight –
lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
~William O. Douglas from The Douglas letters: Selections from the private papers of Justice William O. Douglas by William O. Douglas

barnsunsetcentral

We live in a time where the groaning need
and dividedness of humankind
is especially to be felt and recognized.
Countless people are subjected to hatred,
violence and oppression which go unchecked.
The injustice and corruption which exist today
are causing many voices to be raised to protest
and cry out that something be done.
Many men and women are being moved to sacrifice much
in the struggle for justice, freedom, and peace.
There is a movement afoot in our time,
a movement which is growing, awakening.

We must recognize that we as individuals are to blame
for every social injustice,
every oppression,
the downgrading of others
and the injury that man does to man,
whether personal or on a broader plane.…
God must intervene with his spirit and his justice and his truth.
The present misery, need, and decay must pass away
and the new day of the Son of Man must dawn.
This is the advent of God’s coming.
~Dwight Blough from the introduction to When the Time was Fulfilled (1965)

foggydrops10

Be careful whom you choose to hate.
The small and the vulnerable own a protection great enough,
if you could but see it,
to melt you into jelly.
~Leif Enger from Peace Like a River

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question
the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.
On the one hand, we are called to play the good Samaritan
on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act.
One day the whole Jericho road must be transformed
so that men and women will not be beaten and robbed
as they make their journey through life.
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar;
it understands that an edifice
that produces beggars needs restructuring.
America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world,
can well lead the way in this revolution of values.
There is nothing, except a tragic death wish,
to prevent us from reordering our priorities…
~Martin Luther King, Jr. from a speech April 4, 1967

roadeast921171

As we walk this life, this Jericho Road together,
we cannot pass by the brother, the sister, the child
who lies dying in the ditch.
We must stop and help.

By mere circumstances of our place of birth,
it could be you or me there bleeding, beaten, abandoned
until Someone,
journeying along that road,
comes looking for us,
He who was sent to take our place,
as Substitution
so we can get up, be made whole again,
and walk Home.

Maranatha.

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
Hate multiplies hate,
violence multiplies violence,
and toughness multiplies toughness
in a descending spiral of destruction….
The chain reaction of evil —
hate begetting hate,
wars producing more wars —
must be broken,
or we shall be plunged
into the dark abyss of annihilation.
~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from Strength to Love

Lyrics:
At the edge of Jericho Road
Beneath the street light’s yellow orange glow
The feared and the fallen go
In the way of predator and prey
No one’s spared
Because hate is too great a weight to bear

In a cage of shadows we meet
Naked and bloodied in the street
At the mercy, at the feet
Of the way of predator and prey
No one’s spared
Because hate is too great a weight to bear

In the darkness on shattered pavement
The better angels fade
Blurred in slumber, murder by numbers
Do you know my name?
Do you know my name?
I believe in you

Because everyone holds some part of the truth
And now, I’m in your way
Do we stay on Jericho Road, forever going nowhere
Till hate is too great a weight to bear

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Come and See: Above All Things

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After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized. 
Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were coming and being baptized. 
(This was before John was put in prison.) An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”

To this John replied, “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’ The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less.”

The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. Whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.
John 3: 22-36

Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
~St. Patrick

To come down and wear our skin
is for you to know our frailty:
our bruises and callouses,
our sunburns and warts,
our tears and our bleeding,
our spasming backs,
and toothaches.

To come down to pulse within our hearts,
is for you to know our temptation
for self-promotion,
and our desire
to fill our own emptiness
before first loving and serving others.

To inhabit our souls
you humbled yourself
to pull together
our millions of broken pieces,
feeding us with yourself,
your spirit becoming the adhesive
to glue us back wholly,
God loving us by becoming us,
so we don’t simply crumble to dust.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

Humble and Human, willing to bend You are
Fashioned of flesh and the fire of life, You are
Not too proud to wear our skin
To know this weary world we’re in
Humble, humble Jesus

Humble in sorrow, You gladly carried Your cross
Never refusing Your life to the weakest of us
Not too proud to bear our sin
To feel this brokenness we’re in
Humble, humble Jesus

We bow our knees
We must decrease
You must increase
We lift You high

Humble in greatness, born in the likeness of man
Name above all names, holding our world in Your hands
Not too proud to dwell with us, to live in us, to die for us
Humble, humble Jesus

I arise today through the strength of heaven
Light of sun, radiance of moon
Splendor of fire, speed of lightning
Swiftness of wind, depth of the sea
Stability of earth, firmness of rock

I arise today through God’s strength to pilot me
God’s eye to look before me
God’s wisdom to guide me
God’s way to lie before me
God’s shield to protect me

From all who shall wish me ill
Afar and a-near
Alone and in a multitude
Against every cruel, merciless power
That may oppose my body and soul

Christ with me, Christ before me
Christ behind me, Christ in me
Christ beneath me, Christ above me
Christ on my right, Christ on my left
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down
Christ when I arise, Christ to shield me

Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me

I arise today. 
~St. Patrick’s Breastplate

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Trying to Call You

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Was it worthwhile to paint so fair
The every leaf – to vein with faultless art
Each petal, taking the boon light and air
Of summer so to heart?

To bring thy beauty unto a perfect flower,
Then like a passing fragrance or a smile
Vanish away, beyond recovery’s power –
Was it, frail bloom, worthwhile?

Thy silence answers: “Life was mine!
And I, who pass without regret or grief,
Have cared the more to make my moment fine,
Because it was so brief.

In its first radiance I have seen
The sun! – Why tarry then till comes the night?
I go my way, content that I have been
Part of the morning light!”
~Florence Earle Coates “The Morning Glory”

“. . . God does not leave us comfortless.”
Jane Kenyon

We weren’t done talking yet.
So I am trying to call you using the morning glories,
whose blue mouths are open to the sky,
whose throats are white stars,
thinking those tendrils could trellis upward,
hand over little green hand, so tenacious,
they hang on in any storm,
forgetting that the quick slap of frost
will put out those blue lights,
that the seasons will snap shut like a purse,
that this old blue world will keep on spinning,
without you.
~Barbara Crooker “Without You” from Line Dance

NASA photo

Vigil at my Mother’s bedside…

Lying still, your mouth gapes open as
I wonder if you breathe your last.
Your hair a white cloud
Your skin baby soft
No washing, digging, planting gardens
Or raising children
Anymore.

Where do your dreams take you?
At times you wake in your childhood home of
Rolling wheat fields, boundless days of freedom.
Other naps take you to your student and teaching days
Grammar and drama, speech and essays.
Yesterday you were a young mother again
Juggling babies, farm and your wistful dreams.

Today you looked about your empty nest
Disguised as hospital bed,
Wondering aloud about
Children grown, flown.
You still control through worry
and tell me:
Travel safely
Get a good night’s sleep
Take time to eat
Call me when you get there

I dress you as you dressed me
I clean you as you cleaned me
I love you as you loved me
You try my patience as I tried yours.
I wonder if I have the strength to
Mother my mother
For as long as she needs.

When I tell you the truth
Your brow furrows as it used to do
When I disappointed you~
This cannot be
A bed in a room in a sterile place
Waiting for death
Waiting for heaven
Waiting

And I tell you:
Travel safely
Eat, please eat
Sleep well
Call me when you get there.

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One Small Cry

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The children have gone to bed.
We are so tired we could fold ourselves neatly
behind our eyes and sleep mid-word, sleep standing
warm among the creatures in the barn, lean together
and sleep, forgetting each other completely in the velvet,
the forgiveness of sleep.

Then the one small cry:
one strike of the match-head of sound:
one child’s voice:
and the hundred names of love are lit
as we rise and walk down the hall.

One hundred nights we wake like this,
wake out of our nowhere
to kneel by small beds in darkness.
One hundred flowers open in our hands,
a name for love written in each one.
~Annie Lighthart,“The Hundred Names of Love” from Iron String

I thought I had forgotten how to wake to the sound of a baby’s cry or a child’s voice calling out in the night.

I thought I wouldn’t remember how to gently open their bedroom door, entering their darkness from my own darkness, sorting out what was distressing them, sensing how to soothe them back to slumber, wondering if I might sing or pray the words they needed to hear, bringing a blossoming peace and stillness to their night.

When our son’s family arrived three years ago from thousands of miles away, staying with us until they could settle in their own place, I was reminded my nights were never meant to be mine alone.

As a child myself, I had such frequent night-wakenings that I’m sure my mother despaired that I would ever sleep through the night. She would come when I called, sitting beside my bed, rubbing my back until I forgot what woke me in the first place. She was patient and caring despite her own weariness, sleep problems and worriedness. She loved me and forgave me for needing her presence in the night; her nights were never her own.

So I too responded with compassion when my own children called out in the night. As part of my doctoring life, I woke regularly to phone calls from the ER or hospital and from patients during forty-two years of medical practice; I listened and tried my best to answer anxious questions with gentle understanding.

And when a grandchild sleeps here overnight, I’m on call again, remembering the sweetness of someone responding in the dark; the fears of the night need the promise of the Lord staying with us until the new day comes, usually only a few hours away.

Little child, be not afraid
Though rain pounds harshly against the glass
Like an unwanted stranger, there is no danger
I am here tonight

Little child, be not afraid
Though thunder explodes and lightning flash
Illuminates your tear-stained face
I am here tonight

And someday you’ll know
That nature is so
The same rain that draws you near me
Falls on rivers and land
On forests and sand
Makes the beautiful world that you’ll see
In the morning

Little child, be not afraid
Though storm clouds mask your beloved moon
And its candlelight beams, still keep pleasant dreams
I am here tonight

Little child, be not afraid
Though wind makes creatures of our trees
And their branches to hands, they’re not real, understand
And I am here tonight

And someday you’ll know
That nature is so
The same rain that draws you near me
Falls on rivers and land
On forests and sand
Makes the beautiful world that you’ll see
In the morning

For you know, once even I was a
Little child, and I was afraid
But a gentle someone always came
To dry all my tears, trade sweet sleep for fears
And to give a kiss goodnight

Well now I am grown
And these years have shown
That rain’s a part of how life goes
But it’s dark and it’s late
So I’ll hold you and wait
‘Til your frightened eyes do close

And I hope that you’ll know
That nature is so
The same rain that draws you near me
Falls on rivers and land
On forests and sand
Makes the beautiful world that you’ll see
In the morning

Everything’s fine in the morning
The rain’ll be gone in the morning
But I’ll still be here in the morning

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Surrounded By a Winter Sunset

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How can I feel so warm   
Here in the dead center of January? I can   
Scarcely believe it, and yet I have to, this is   
The only life I have. 
~James Wright from “A Winter Daybreak above Vence”

sunset1131812
to the northwest
sunset1131816
to the north

To-day I shall be strong,
No more shall yield to wrong,
  Shall squander life no more;
Days lost, I know not how,
I shall retrieve them now;
Now I shall keep the vow
  I never kept before.
Ensanguining the skies
How heavily it dies
  Into the west away;
Past touch and sight and sound
Not further to be found,
How hopeless under ground
  Falls the remorseful day.
~A.E. Houseman from “How Clear, How Lovely Bright”

sunset1131816
to the northeast
sunset1131810
to the east
sunset1131814
to the southeast

It was like a church to me.
I entered it on soft foot,
Breath held like a cap in the hand.
It was quiet.
What God there was made himself felt,
Not listened to, in clean colours
That brought a moistening of the eye,
In a movement of the wind over grass.
There were no prayers said. But stillness
Of the heart’s passions — that was praise
Enough; and the mind’s cession
Of its kingdom. I walked on,
Simple and poor, while the air crumbled
And broke on me generously as bread.
~R.S. Thomas “The Moor”

sunset113188
to the south
sunset1131811
to the southwest

So welcome in the dead center of January:
a surround-sunset experience on our farm – 360 degrees of evolving color and patterns, streaks and swirls, gradation and gradual decline.

All is silent. No bird song, no wind, no spoken prayer.
Yet communion takes place with the air breaking and feeding me like manna from heaven.

Witnessing the light bleeding out all around me:

I will squander my days no more, treasuring each as sheer gift.
I will seek to serve my God, church, family, friends, and community.
I will be warmed on this chilly winter day even as it descends to darkness, knowing light and hope will return.

sunset113181
to the west
sunset113182
to the west
sunset113171
to the west
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A Lingering Pain

barnstormingblog2 Comments

I have left my wife at the airport,
flying out to help our daughter
whose baby will not eat.
And I am driving on to Kent
to hear some poets read tonight.

I don’t know what to do with myself
when she leaves me like this.
An old friend has decided to
end our friendship. Another
is breaking it off with his wife.

I don’t know what to say
to any of this-Life’s hard.
And I say it aloud to myself,
Living is hard, and drive further
into the darkness, my headlights
only going so far.

I sense my own tense breath, this fear
we call stress, making it something else,
hiding from all that is real.

As I glide past Twin Lakes,
flat bodies of water under stars,
I hold the wheel gently, slowing my
body to the road, and know again that
this is just living, not a trauma
nor dying, but a lingering pain
reminding us that we are alive.
~Larry Smith “Following the Road” from A River Remains

The grace of God means something like:
Here is your life.
You might never have been, but you are because
the party wouldn’t have been complete without you.
Here is the world.
Beautiful and terrible things will happen.
Don’t be afraid. I am with you.
Nothing can ever separate us.
It’s for you I created the universe.
I love you. 
There’s only one catch.
Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours
only if you’ll reach out and take it. 
Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too. 
~Frederich Buechner from Wishful Thinking 

You get out of bed, wash and dress;
eat breakfast, say goodbye and go away
never maybe, to return for all you know,
to work, talk, lust, pray, dawdle and do,
and at the end of the day, if your luck holds,
you come home again, home again.
Then night again. Bed. The little death of sleep, sleep of death. Morning, afternoon, evening—
the hours of the day, of any day, of your day and my day.
The alphabet of grace.
If there is a God who speaks anywhere, surely he speaks here:
through waking up and working,
through going away and coming back again,
through people you read and books you meet,
through falling asleep in the dark.
Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves.
Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure,
but clean enough for another day’s chalking.
~Frederich Buechner from “The Alphabet of Grace

Our six year old grandson, hoping to calm his older sister’s melt-down:
“Life is life – it’ll be okay tomorrow…“

So tomorrow –
move forward to leave a mark on a new day
after tonight’s erasing rest.

No matter what took place this day,
no matter the misgivings,
no matter what should have been left unsaid,
no matter how hard the heart,
no matter the lingering pain,
there is another day to make it right.

Forgiveness finds a foothold in the dark,
when eyelids close,
thoughts quietly open,
voices hush in prayers
of praise, petition and gratitude.

And so now
simply sleep on it
knowing his grace
abounds in blameless dreams.

Morning will come
awash in new light,
another chance
freely given.

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On What Has Been

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The house had gone to bring again
To the midnight sky a sunset glow.
Now the chimney was all of the house that stood,
Like a pistil after the petals go.

The barn opposed across the way,
That would have joined the house in flame
Had it been the will of the wind, was left
To bear forsaken the place’s name.

No more it opened with all one end
For teams that came by the stony road
To drum on the floor with scurrying hoofs
And brush the mow with the summer load.

The birds that came to it through the air
At broken windows flew out and in,
Their murmur more like the sigh we sigh
From too much dwelling on what has been.

Yet for them the lilac renewed its leaf,
And the aged elm, though touched with fire;
And the dry pump flung up an awkward arm:
And the fence post carried a strand of wire.

For them there was really nothing sad.
But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept,
One had to be versed in country things
Not to believe the phoebes wept.
 ~Robert Frost “The Need of Being Versed in Country Things”

Photo of Aaron Janicki haying with his Oberlander team in Skagit County – courtesy of Tayler Rae
The field of my childhood farm (1954-59) with the red barn visible on the right. The house was destroyed by fire in the mid-60s but the barn was spared
photo by Harry Rodenberger

My family sold our first farm in East Stanwood, Washington, when my father took a job working for the state in Olympia, moving to supervising high school agriculture teachers rather than being an ag teacher himself.

It was a difficult transition for us all: we moved to a smaller home and a few acres, selling the large two story house, a huge hay barn and chicken coop as well as fields and a woods where our dairy cows had grazed.

Only a few years later, that old farmhouse burned down but the rest of the buildings were spared. It passed through a few hands and when we had occasion to drive by, we were dismayed to see how nature was taking over the place. The barn still stood but unused it was weathering and withering. Windows were broken, birds flew in and out, the former flower garden had grown wild and unruly.

This was the place I was conceived, where I learned to walk and talk, developing a love for wandering in the fields among the farm animals we depended upon. I remember as a child of four sitting at the kitchen table looking out the window at the sunrise rising over the woods and making the misty fields turn golden.

This land returned to its essence before the ground was ever plowed or buildings were constructed. It no longer belonged to our family (as if it ever did) but it forever belongs to our memories.

I am overly prone to nostalgia, dwelling more on what has been than what is now or what I hope is to come. It is easy to weep over the losses when time and circumstances reap something unrecognizable.

I may weep, but nature does not. The sun continues to rise over the fields, the birds continue to build nests, the lilacs grow taller with outrageous blooms, and each day ends with a promise of another to come.

So I must dwell on what lies ahead, not what has perished in the ashes.

photo by Harry Rodenberger

Tell me, where is the road I can call my own
That I left, that I lost
So long ago?
All these years I have wandered
Oh, when will I know
There’s a way, there’s a road
That will lead me home
After wind, after rain
When the dark is done
As I wake from a dream
In the gold of day
Through the air there’s a calling
From far away
There’s a voice I can hear
That will lead me home
Rise up, follow me
Come away, is the call
With the love in your heart
As the only song
There is no such beauty
As where you belong
Rise up, follow me
I will lead you home

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